Wannabe Grandparents Go to Extremes By Paying to Have Daughters’ Eggs Frozen

But some are taking it a step further and paying to have their daughters’ eggs frozen for use later on.

Many women these days put off having kids to pursue their careers, which means if they later decide they want a family, their eggs may no longer be viable. So some are turning to reproductive centers that will freeze their eggs in the hope that they can be retrieved and used at a later date.

The procedure is an expensive one, running between $8,000 and $18,000. And since so many older people want to be grandparents, they’re sometimes offering to foot some or all of the bill.

Dr. Daniel Shapiro, medical director of Reproductive Biology Associates of Atlanta, estimates at least three quarters of his center’s egg-freezing patients have parents who’ve chipped in to cover the cost. It’s gotten so popular that he even now offers gift certificates.

Jennifer Hayes, 36, said she was initially reluctant to accept money from her parents to freeze her eggs, but eventually changed her mind.

“My mom said to me, ‘Do you think we’d rather have this money sitting in an account or have a potential grandchild someday?’” she recalled. “When she positioned it that way, it somehow just changed the way I felt.”